As the red and golden blaze of a fire that devours a mighty forest is seen from afar, so was seen from afar the dazzling gleam of their bronze armor as they marched.
Like wild geese and cranes and swans that in long-drawn strings fly tirelessly onward, so poured they forth, while the earth echoed terribly under the tread of men and horses.
As flies that swarm in the spring when the herdsmen's milk-pails are full, so did the Greeks throng to battle, unnumbered as the leaves and the flowers upon which they trod in the flowery plain by the banks of the river Scamander.
III
THE FIGHT BETWEEN PARIS AND MENELAUS
To meet the great Greek host came the men of Troy. With loud shouting and clamor they came, noisy as the flocks of cranes that fly to far-off seas before the coming of winter and sudden rain.
But in silence marched the Greeks, shoulder to shoulder, their hearts full of courage.
Like the mist that rolls from the crest of the mountains until no man can see in front of him further than the cast of a stone, so did the dust rise in clouds under the tread of the warriors' feet as they marched across the plain.
Front to front did the two armies stand at last, and from the Trojan ranks strode forth Paris the godlike, he who robbed Menelaus of her who was to him most dear.